Score One for Thorn in Government’s Side Behind N.S.A. Ruling

Larry Klayman, Plaintiff in N.S.A. Case, Savors Victory

WASHINGTON — Larry Klayman knew how to pick a legal fight long before Monday, when he took the first round in a judicial crusade on behalf of the little guy against big-government snooping. But not always a winning fight.

In the 1990s, he filed numerous lawsuits against President Bill Clinton and his administration, alleging a litany of personal and professional transgressions. Mr. Klayman later nettled Vice President Dick Cheney over his secret energy policy meetings and claimed that members of George W. Bush’s administration might have known in advance of the 2001 anthrax attacks in Washington.

More recently, Mr. Klayman, who has been called “Litigious Larry,” sued OPEC, accusing oil-rich nations of price fixing and of trying to “bring Western economies to their knees.” And he sued Facebook and its founder for $1 billion when, he said, it was too slow to take down a web page that threatened Jews with death.

Many of his lawsuits have fallen far short of the success bombastically predicted by Mr. Klayman. But on Monday, a federal judge agreed with his contention that the National Security Agency had exceeded its constitutional authority by systematically gathering the telephone records of Americans.

“It’s a little like a MIRV nuking a missile,” he said in an interview on Monday night, referring to the use of a weapon with several warheads to take down an incoming threat. “If only one in 10 gets through, you’ve accomplished something. You’ve got to keep punching.”

Mr. Klayman, 62, is a fixture of sorts in Washington. He founded, and then parted ways, with the conservative interest group Judicial Watch, which continues litigating grievances despite Mr. Klayman’s bitter departure. (He sued Judicial Watch, too, accusing it of breach of contract and other offenses.) His 2009 book is titled “Whores: Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment.”

Mike McCurry, who was a press secretary in Mr. Clinton’s administration, recalled Mr. Klayman as an “annoying critic” for the Clinton White House and for successors from both parties. But Mr. McCurry noted that his methods have sometimes succeeded in the courts.

“His latest legal challenge might create some evidence that there is method in his madness,” Mr. McCurry said.

Mr. Klayman has not spared the current Democratic administration. At a Tea Party rally in October, he urged conservatives “to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up.”

Last year, Mr. Klayman filed a lawsuit in Florida arguing that Barack Obama was ineligible to be president because “neither Mr. Obama, nor the Democratic Party of Florida, nor any other group has confirmed that Mr. Obama is a ‘natural born citizen’ since his father was a British subject born in Kenya and not a citizen of the United States.”

Photo

Larry Klayman reviewed presidential ballots in Florida in 2000 as a member of the conservative interest group Judicial Watch.Credit
Vincent Laforet/The New York Times

Mr. Klayman’s own political career was short-lived. In 2004, he ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for the Senate in Florida, receiving only about 1 percent of the vote.

But it is a point of pride for Mr. Klayman that his legal “missiles” have no guidance systems that aim them in only one direction. He is proudly nonpartisan, he said, giving himself credit for being “one of the first” to call for Newt Gingrich to resign over ethics scandals when he was the speaker of the House.

Mr. Klayman said his legal attacks on the government’s spying programs are further evidence that he cares less about the party in power than about forcing the powerful to answer to their critics.

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“To me, this is completely a nonpartisan issue. It doesn’t have anything to do with Republicans or Democrats,” he said on Monday. “I’m just happy for the American people.”

In his ruling on Monday, the judge in the N.S.A. spying case embraced some of the bigger-than-life language that is Mr. Klayman’s forte. In his 68-page decision, the judge, Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, called the N.S.A.’s use of its technology “almost Orwellian.” He added that he could not “imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval.”

But even as he agreed with Mr. Klayman’s accusations, the judge took pains to note Mr. Klayman’s less-than-traditional legal style.

Judge Leon wrote that Mr. Klayman responded during arguments in court that the N.S.A. was “messing with me.” The judge added: “Unfortunately for plaintiffs, none of these unusual occurrences or instances of being ‘messed with’ have anything to do with the question of whether the N.S.A. has ever queried or analyzed their telephony metadata.”

Mr. Klayman’s relentless legal career has won him many critics. Brad Blakeman, a professor at Georgetown University and a former official in Mr. Bush’s administration, said their paths crossed when Mr. Klayman filed a lawsuit claiming trademark violations involving Mr. Blakeman’s conservative group, Freedom’s Watch. Mr. Klayman lost that particular battle.

“Larry Klayman fights for himself and his own delusions of grandeur,” Mr. Blakeman said on Monday. “He’s probably one of the more despicable people I’ve ever encountered. If you look up gadfly in the dictionary, I believe you’ll see a picture of Larry Klayman. He’s a professional antagonist. He’s a bully.”

Stressing that his opinions of Mr. Klayman were only opinions, Mr. Blakeman waved aside the ruling on the N.S.A. and other examples of Mr. Klayman’s success.

“A clock is right twice a day,” Mr. Blakeman said. “It’s the 22 other hours.”

For the moment, Mr. Klayman seems pleased with himself and immune to criticism. He said he heard about the ruling on Monday while he was “sitting at my desk, sipping coffee.” He got a telephone call and then an email that the judge had ruled in his favor.

“Frankly, it didn’t surprise me legally,” Mr. Klayman said. But, he added, “Given what I’ve seen in the last 10 years, I wasn’t out there gloating until it came out.”

A version of this article appears in print on December 18, 2013, on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Score One for Thorn in Government’s Side Behind N.S.A. Ruling. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe